Last week, President Barack Obama grant­ed clemency to eight people serving long sentences on crack-cocaine convictions. It was long past time the president acted — and it remains long past time for many others en­during excessive sentences in federal prison.

One person on Obama's list, Clarence Aaron, was serving three life sentences for partici­pating in a drug deal.

Another, Stephanie George, was handed a life sentence for stashing her boyfriend's drugs. These are just a couple of the nearly 9,000 people con­victed under harsh anti-crack policies that Congress established in 1986 and then revised in 2010. By that point, the old standards were widely considered unfair as well as needlessly expensive.

'Because of a disparity in the law that is now recognized as unjust,' Obama said last week, 'they remain in prison, separated from their families and their com­munities, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dol­lars each year.'

Congress and the presi­dent agree that the old rules were unwise, yet many others sitting in prison deserve a chance to show that their sentences did not fit their crimes.

The fairest and most com­prehensive way to give them that chance would come from Congress, which could impose a broad solution and enlist federal judges to apply it.

Lawmakers are consider­ing various ways to ease sentences — and the strain on the prison system — by applying new sentencing standards to old convic­tions. A bill sponsored by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, would require inmates seeking relaxed punish­ments to apply to federal judges, who would have leeway to reduce sentences — or leave them in place, if appropriate.

But the president has the unrestricted authority to grant clemency to fed­eral convicts. Thousands of people were sentenced under an unjust system the president has condemned.

Why should he stop with granting clemency to only eight of them? ...

A couple of decades ago, when urban crime was a raging issue, letting even eight crack offend­ers out of prison would have been politically treacherous. It is a sign of how much attitudes have changed — for the saner — that a budding crimi­nal justice reform effort has not been met with popular concern or even much notice. Politicians should embrace the opportunity to rebalance, in a measured way, how the country punishes criminals. Mr. Obama's latest move is welcome.